1018 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
his defence by a legal practitioner. In other words, a distinction is made between the right to consult and the right to be defended. Personally I thought that the words “to consult” included also the right to be defended because consultation would be utterly purposeless if it was not for the purpose of defence. However, in order to remove any ambiguity or any argument that may be raised that consultation is used in a limited sense, I am prepared to add after the words “to consult” the words “and be defended by a legal practitioner”, so that there would be both the right to consult and also the right to be defended. A question has been raised by the last speaker as to the meaning of the words “legal practitioner of his choice”. No doubt the words “of his choice” are important and they have been deliberately used, because we do not want the Government of the day to foist upon an accused person a counsel whom the Government may think fit to appear in his case because the accused person may not have confidence in him. Therefore we have used the words “of his choice”. But the words “of his choice” are qualified by the words “legal practitioner”. By the phrase “legal practitioner” is meant what we usually understand, namely, a practitioner who by the rules of the High Court or of the Court concerned, is entitled to practise.
Now, Sir, I come to clause (2). The principal point is that raised by my Friend Mr. Pataskar. So far as I was able to understand, he wanted to replace the word “Magistrate” by the words “First class Magistrate”. Well, I find some difficulty in accepting the words suggested by him for two reasons. We have in clause (2) used very important words, namely, “the nearest Magistrate” and I thought that was very necessary because otherwise it would enable a police officer to keep a man in custody for a longer period on the ground that a particular Magistrate to whome he wanted to take the accused, or the Magistrate who would be ultimately entitled to try the accused, was living at a distance far away and therefore he had a justifiable ground for detaining him for the longer period. In order to take away any such argument, we had used the words “the nearest Magistrate”. Now supposing, we were to add the words “the nearest First Class Magistrate” : the position would be very difficult. There may be “the nearest Magistrate” who should be approached by the police in the interests of the accused himself in order that his case may be judicially considered. But he may not be a First Class Magistrate. Therefore, we have really to take a choice; whether we shall give the accused the earliest opportunity to have his matter decided and looked into by the Magistrate near-about, or whether we should go in search of